Wednesday, March 17, 2010

One of the regular (and funny) segments running on The Daily Show features government representatives and the changes in their rhetoric over the years. Jon Stewart's relentless minions isolate and find sudden changes in political viewpoints to show the hideously partisan underpinnings of elected representatives.

Well now citizens have that same power at their fingertips. You no longer have to have a full time CPAN research team to find comments of elected officials from the last 25 years. You know have CPAN's entire archive available online for all to see.

Read details here in the New York Times coverage of CPAN's archives launch.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Here's moi (Pam) with web video marketing class from last week held at Techliminal, a wonderful walk-in tech salon and beehive of activity in downtown Oakland.

This intro class had four students: a volunteer from the Oakland Rose Garden; Tora Rocha, of Oakland's Morcom Rose Garden; John Klein; and Michael Mitrani, Earth Island Institute (not pictured).

Tora made a very successful video for the rose garden which has been posted on the garden's Facebook page and has attracted a lot of comments, attention and PRAISE. Tora says it's also attracted many new friends and followers to the garden's Facebook group.

Here's her Animoto video about the wonderful volunteers in the garden:

NEXT CLASS: FEB. 19

The next Intro to Web Video Marketing Class will be held Friday, Feb. 19, from 9 to 3 pm. For more info, visit www.webvideomarketingclub.com where you can also register for the Feb. class. The fee is $95. You'll learn how to use web video for your business or cause, without having to learn how to shoot and edit video, using free or low-cost tools and services. Come discover how video can make your organization grow!

Turnhere.com's been experimenting with various pricing over the last few years as it tries to become the go to place for professionally produced, low-cost videos for small businesses and others. This summer the price was $500 for a 2 minute piece (shot on location at your place). Earlier it was $899. Now - it's FREE. Yes, you read that right - FREE.

It's free for three months, at least.

After that, you'll need to start paying - you have choices. The $19.99 a month plan promotes your video here there and everywhere online. If you want to download a copy of the video and post it yourself, that'll run you $599. Still, it seems like the steal/deal of the century to me.

So let's review the economics of the situation here:

You order and receive a video - FREE.If, after three months, you like it and want TurnHere to promote you in search, online, in Google Local, etc. - you pay only $20 a month. That's $240 a year including SEO, etc.

If you want to do your own online placement, you pay $599.

But if you get a video and use it for a year, that's going to run you 9 months at $20 = $180. Yowsa.

I say - Go For It - and soon. Who knows when this offer will change up on you. And you'll go - oh no, I shudda, cudda, wudda. Sign up now! You've got nothing to lose.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

We'll be having a great intro to web video marketing class Friday (tomorrow) in downtown Oakland. I am going to be showing a few Animoto videos made by former students including this one from Martha Edith Hernandez at Peterson Power (Caterpillar).

Here are Martha's comments about the results of the class she took (in Sept.):

"These videos have been so much fun to create. I've created several. We just used them at a tradeshow in December in Vegas. I had my sales team put these videos on there iPhones and show customers. The one I am sending you was on a continuous loop on our monitors. All of the managers love it. It only took me 5 minutes to create it! Amazing!! Thanks so much for showing me this amazing tool."

YouTube is getting a graphic upgrade! The new design makes a lot more room on the page for the video to play. Less fussy and fewer distractions to make you click on to yet another link - which means people may continue to actually watch YOUR video.

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Upcoming Web Video Marketing Classes

About Pam Strayer

Pam is a video consultant and producer who helps businesses use web video for internal and external communications. A digital pioneer since 1992, when she directed the first video made on a computer (Apple's Quicktime 1.0 debut, in the bestselling CD-ROM From Alice to Ocean), she has been evangelizing video for companies large and small (Apple, Wells Fargo and others). Jerry Garcia, UN Sec. Gen Bhoutros Bhoutros Ghali and the Dalai Lama are just a few of her clients. Her passion for helping friends and family make simple personal videos spawned her bestselling 2005 book Create Your Own Digital Movies. Her web video efforts have expanded to internal Enterprise 2.0 projects for Wells Fargo, where the internal video channel she started is the employees' top-rated content. She teaches web video marketing in Oakland at Techliminal.com and in San Francisco for U. C. Berkeley Extension, offering the first university sponsored class in web video marketing. Pam was also featured recently in Fox's Small Business portal on her five tips for web video marketing success.